This was the case with Mrs. Ryves; she had satisfied Mrs. Bundy that
she was not a simple strummer. Mrs. Bundy admitted to Peter Baron
that, for herself, she had a weakness for a pretty tune, and Peter
could honestly reply that his ear was equally sensitive. Everything
would depend on the "touch" of their inmate. Mrs. Ryves's piano
would blight his existence if her hand should prove heavy or her
selections vulgar; but if she played agreeable things and played them
in an agreeable way she would render him rather a service while he
smoked the pipe of "form." Mrs. Bundy, who wanted to let her rooms,
guaranteed on the part of the stranger a first-class talent, and Mrs.
Ryves, who evidently knew thoroughly what she was about, had not
falsified this somewhat rash prediction. She never played in the
morning, which was Baron's working-time, and he found himself
listening with pleasure at other hours to her discreet and melancholy
strains. He really knew little abou